Lead handling
The nine questions to ask on every remodel call
6 min read
The first call decides whether a job is worth your truck. Most contractors treat it as a scheduling call: get a name, get an address, book a look. Then they drive forty minutes to find out the budget was never real.
Nine questions fix that. They take about four minutes. Ask them in this order, because the order is doing work.
1. “What are you looking to get done?”
Open, not closed. Let them talk for a minute without interrupting. You will learn more from how they describe the job than from any answer later in the call.
Somebody who says “we want to open up the kitchen into the dining room and redo the cabinets” has thought about it. Somebody who says “we’re thinking about maybe doing something with the kitchen” has not. Both are fine. They just need different calls.
2. “How long have you been thinking about it?”
This is the single most useful question in the list and almost nobody asks it.
“About two years” means they are finally ready. “Since the weekend” means they are gathering information. Neither is bad, but the two-year caller should get a site visit this week and the weekend caller should get a phone conversation and a follow-up.
3. “Have you had anyone else out to look at it?”
You are asking two things at once: how far along they are, and whether you are the first or the fifth quote.
If you are the first, slow down and do it properly. If you are the fifth, ask what the other quotes came in at and why they have not gone ahead. The answer tells you whether this is a price problem or a trust problem.
4. “Where is the property?”
Ask early, not at the end. If it is outside your area, everything after this is wasted for both of you.
Be specific about your radius before you take the call, and be willing to say no. Driving ninety minutes for a mid-size job is a way to be busy and broke at the same time. A call from the far side of the county is a polite referral, not a site visit.
5. “Roughly what were you hoping to spend?”
The question everyone is scared of. Ask it anyway, and ask it in that exact soft form. “Hoping to spend” gives them permission to give you a range instead of committing to a number.
If they say they have no idea, help them: “Most kitchens like the one you’re describing land somewhere between X and Y, depending on cabinets. Does that sound like the right neighbourhood?” You are not quoting. You are calibrating. Whether you should go further and charge for the estimate itself is a separate decision.
If the number they give is half of what the job costs, you have saved yourself a trip and them an awkward afternoon.
6. “When would you want the work to start?”
Timeline and budget together tell you almost everything. A realistic budget with a vague timeline is a good lead you should nurture. A tight timeline with an unrealistic budget is somebody who is about to be disappointed by whoever takes the job.
Also listen for hard dates. “Before my daughter’s wedding in October” is a real constraint and it makes the caller far more likely to commit.
7. “Is there anything driving the timing?”
The follow-up to the last one, and it is where the real story comes out. A leak. A relative moving in. A house they are getting ready to sell. An insurance claim.
Motivation is the difference between a lead and a job.
8. “Who else is involved in the decision?”
Asked politely, this saves entire second visits. If there is a spouse, a business partner, or a parent paying for it, you want them at the walkthrough, not hearing about it secondhand.
Nothing kills a good quote like being relayed by somebody who was not there.
9. “What’s the best number and email for you?”
Last, not first. By now they have talked for five minutes and they are invested. Contact details asked at the top of a call feel like a form. Asked at the end, they feel like the natural next step.
Then confirm the appointment out loud, and say when they will get the confirmation.
Writing it down is half the job
The questions only work if the answers survive. Notes scribbled on a scrap of plywood do not survive.
Whatever you use, one place, every call, same fields: job, budget range, address, timeline, motivation, decision makers, contact. If you cannot look at last Tuesday’s calls and see all seven for each one, the system is not working yet.
The part nobody wants to hear
You cannot ask nine questions while holding a nail gun. That is the actual reason most shops do not do this, and it is not a discipline problem. It is a physics problem.
The options are to stop working when the phone rings, to hire someone, or to have something else pick up and run the call for you. Most one and two-truck shops have run the first option for years and know exactly what it costs, which is roughly what we worked out here.
Whatever you choose, the questions stay the same. Print them, tape them inside the truck door, and ask them in order. The four minutes pay for themselves on the first trip you do not make.
In a lot of markets the first-call standard is higher than most contractors think, because homeowners are usually calling several shops the same afternoon. Being the one that asked good questions is how you get remembered. If you want that to happen on every call, here is what that looks like.
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